Portable electronic devices, such as cellular telephones, smartphones, tablet computers, laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), gaming devices, navigation systems, audio devices, video devices, camera devices and the like, frequently include one or more antennas so as to facilitate wireless communication. Portable electronic devices generally include a housing with one or more antennas positioned within, on or as part of the housing. As a result of the continued emphasis upon the reduction in the size of portable electronic devices, the volume within the housing of a portable electronic device that may be filled by an antenna is generally correspondingly limited.
Portable electronic devices increasingly require antennas having both a wide bandwidth and multiple frequency bands. In this regard, portable electronic devices may require antennas to have wide and multiple bands in order to support wireless communication in many operational frequency bands, such as the pentaband and the frequency bands utilized for global positioning systems (GPS). However, the gain and bandwidth of an antenna is limited by its electrical size as measured in wavelength. As such, the development of an antenna having wide and multiple bands may be limited in the context of antennas designed from use in portable electronic devices by the countervailing design objective to develop antennas that are no larger and, more preferably, smaller than the antennas currently deployed in portable electronic devices.